Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Following Feldman, let’s define epistemic peers as two
people are epistemic peers “when they are roughly equal with respect to
intelligence, reasoning powers, background information, etc.”

And let say that “When people have had a full discussion of
a topic and have not

withheld relevant information, we will say that they have shared
their evidence about that topic.”

Many theists appear to believe that atheists and agnostics
shouldn’t be atheists and agnostics. They
are, the theist says, mistaken, unreasonable, misguided, or unjustified. This theist will have some negative attitude
of culpability towards epistemic peers who share evidence. (And the same is true for many atheists,
including myself, about their attitude towards theists and agnostics.)

What the atheist will have to say next to the theist in
these circumstances will depend upon her answer to these questions:

Do you think 1) that
once all the relevant arguments, evidence, and background issues are adequately
considered, a reasonable person is obligated to conclude that God is real, or
that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, or some other central tenets of
modern orthodox monotheism are true?

Or do you think 2) that once all the relevant arguments,
evidence, and background issues are adequately considered, it is epistemically
permissible for a reasonable person to believe that God is real, or that Jesus
was resurrected from the dead, or some other central tenets of modern orthodox
monotheism?

Endorsing 1), as I see it, will also commit a person to
saying that to be an atheist or agnostic, once he has considered all the
relevant arguments, evidence and background issues is unreasonable. Evidence sharing epistemic peers who are atheists
and agnostics ought not believe what they believe.

Endorsing 2), as I see it, places no similar demand or
charge of epistemic culpability on the non-believer. If you think merely that it is not
unreasonable to believe, given all of the relevant evidence, then you are
allowing that a reasonable, evidence sharing peer might well draw a different
conclusion and be within her epistemic rights, as it were.

So theists, which is it?
Do you think that I have made some serious error with regard to the
total available evidence concerning God and that I ought to change my
mind? Or do you merely think that your
believing on the basis of the available evidence is epistemically permissible,
but someone could opt not to believe and he would be similarly inculpable?

45 comments:

This posting is quite interesting, I have been in a YouTube discussion on Father Barrons (Fr. B) channel “Against the YouTube Heresies” with Fr. B and a user by the name of Philip from the UK. Fr. B and Philip defend the Catholic faith and I am atheist. Fr. B rigorously defends the argument from contingency. Fr. B claims to have an S.T.D. (not the sexually transmitted disease) from the Institut Catholique de Paris. Philip was intelligent but apparently did not have a formal education in Philosophy or Theology. I have a minor in Philosophy with three terms of Philosophy of Religion. I could assert that we are epistemic peers.I successfully defeated their contingency argument by showing that even if there is a necessary non-contingency grounding of contingency that does not lead to a triune God. My first argument was that if there is one non-contingency then there are many (Aristotle’s third man argument). My second line of attack ,the cosmological argument does not get you to a God by itself, there has to be a successful ontological argument also (Gale 238, On the Nature and Existence of God). Neither Fr. B or Philip was able to develop this line of thinking (I did write a combined cosmological and ontological argument that lead to a conclusion that some sort of Deity was possible). The conclusion to the exercise was for Fr. B to retreat without admitting defeat. Sharing evidence did not change any beliefs, neither theirs or mine. There is “Reasonable Religious Disagreements” (Feldman).

Hi Matt,You ask a number of interesting questions. I will give you my personal opinion.

1. Do you think 1) that once all the relevant arguments, evidence, and background issues are adequately considered, a reasonable person is obligated to conclude that God is real, or that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, or some other central tenets of modern orthodox monotheism are true?

No. I do not believe it is possible to prove the existence of God in a final sense. I do think it is possible to show that belief in the existence of God is reasonable is probably the best explanation for all the evidence as a whole.

2. Or do you think 2) that once all the relevant arguments, evidence, and background issues are adequately considered, it is epistemically permissible for a reasonable person to believe that God is real, or that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, or some other central tenets of modern orthodox monotheism?

Yes. Based on all the available evidence, it is reasonable to believe God is real, the creator of the universe who came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and rose from the dead.

3. Do you think that I have made some serious error with regard to the total available evidence concerning God and that I ought to change my mind?

First, I do not think you are in possession of all the available evidence. That is not meant to be insulting. I don't think anyone is in possession of all the available evidence.

Second, yes I think it possible you have made an error or two. For example, if you think any of the Incompatible Properties Arguments put forward by Drange are valid, then you are mistaken.

Third, certainly I would like to see you change your mind in the same way Anthony Flew, CS Lewis, Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, Allan Sandage and Lee Strobel have. Since I do not believe absolute proof of God's existence is possible, I would advise you to consider taking Pascal's Wager - as Allan Sandage did - and the doubts then go away.

The only reason an apologist can deny the incompatability of immutability vs. omniscience, is they have the option to change the meaning of each predicate. This is theology gerrymandering. Pascal starts from a position of metaphysical ignorance. We just don’t know anything beyond the realm of experience. The set-up of the wager presumes that we do know something. The wager is a prudential concept like flood insurance. PS, I would be really impressed if you can explain how Pascal solved the problem of the points.

Hello Bob,I see you approve of the immutability vs omniscience argument. This argument fails because the nature of God and timelessness is misunderstood. You claim the only way to defeat the argument is to change the definitions of the predicates. i disagree. The only way to confirm the argument is to be able to show the definitions used are consistent with clear statements from the Bible or with the majority of Christian theologians.

Let's begin with the argument as Drange presented it:

1. If God exists, then he is immutable. 2. If God exists, then he is omniscient. 3. An immutable being cannot know different things at different times. 4. To be omniscient, a being would need to know propositions about the past and future. 5. But what is past and what is future keep changing. 6. Thus, in order to know propositions about the past and future, a being would need to know different things at different times (from 5). 7. It follows that, to be omniscient, a being would need to know different things at different times (from 4 and 6). 8. Hence, it is impossible for an immutable being to be omniscient (from 3 and 7). 9. Therefore, it is impossible for God to exist (from 1, 2, and 8).The usual place at which this argument is attacked is its premise 4. It is claimed that a timeless being can know everything there is to know without knowing propositions about the past and future. Consider the following two propositions as examples:

A. The origin of the planet earth is in the past. B. The end (or destruction) of the planet earth is in the future.The claim is that a timeless being need not know propositions A and B in order to know everything there is to know, because such a being could know the exact dates of both the origin and the end of the earth and that would suffice for complete knowledge. That is, A and B would be "covered," and so it would not be necessary for the omniscient being to know A and B in addition to those dates.

But, of course, this claim can be challenged. To know the dates of the origin and the end of the earth does not entail knowing propositions A and B. To know A and B requires being situated within time (somewhere between the origin and end of the earth), so they are not anything that a timeless being could know. However, they certainly are things that an omniscient being must know. Thus, the given objection to premise 4 of the argument above is a failure.

End Quote

Premise 1 and 2 are fine.Premise 3 is the first problem. It is nonsensical. It is not required by either logic or the Bible. It is not claimed by any Christian theologian. It is simply wrong.Premise 4 is fine.Premise 5 is unclear. Is this claiming that what is past and future is changing because as time passes, things once in the future are now in the past? If so, this is not a problem for a God who is timeless and knows everything that has happened or will happen within the spacetime we call our universe.Premise 6 is completely muddled. A timeless God, while able to invade our spacetime, is not under the restraints of spacetime as we are. No Christian theologian in the history of the church has ever claimed God was under the restraints of time. If he was under the restraints of time, then he would not be omnipotent.

The argument is fatally flawed. It rests on an improper, unbiblical and non-theological view of God. Any argument that wishes to disprove the existence of the God of the Bible has to define God's attributes consistent with clear statements in the Bible or at least consistent with teaching agreed upon by Christian theologians.

Not a single one of Drange's arguments holds up to the slightest scrutiny.

Matt,I skimmed through the paper by Feldman you linked. It was an interesting read. Here's my position on the question:

When analyzing all of the evidence for God's existence and all of the evidence against his existence, there are four possible positions.1. God's existence is proven fact.2. God's non-existence is proven fact.3. God's existence is not proven but is reasonable and I choose to believe it. (theist)4. God's existence is unknown and possibly unknowable. (agnostic)

The final two position are reasonable.

The first two positions are unreasonable. I say they are unreasonable because in the history of philosophy no one has succeeded in proving either God's existence or his non-existence. As Feldman says, reasonable people can sometimes take unreasonable positions.

Ron,You must have big cojones or be incredible naïve, to think that a PhD that wrote the entry for Atheism in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, would not under Pascal Wager, or the justification of knowledge regarding beliefs.In a general philosophy of religion discussion, you cannot assume that your audience regards anyscripture as authoritative. Therefore... It is not appropriate to cite scripture or the Biblical God in an argument. Drange, as a philosopher, understands the standard theist conception of God. Therefore, Drange’s argument is not only valid it is sound. You have confirmed my criticism of apologetics. Apologist can define or redefine Gods attributes at will. Please explain how Pascal and Fermat solved the problem of the points.

Your first sentence is confusing. I believe a word or two may be missing, but I must admit to both charges. I have large cojones and I am sometimes naive. But I am not wrong on this argument.

Regarding sentence two, I am not assuming Matt has any regard for scripture. I am assuming he, and you, understand a straw man argument is invalid. You cannot say "Here is what Christians believe..." and then tear down the argument without making certain you state the Christian argument correctly. Drange has failed to understand the nature of God and timelessness.

Again, I am not attempting to redefine God's attributes. I am stating clearly that Drange has misunderstood them. If you believe Dranage has it write, then point to passages from the Bible or Christian theologians who use Drange's definition. You have thousands of years of church history and theological writings to use to show Drange's definition was held prior to my arriving on the scene. You cannot do it. Because you cannot do it, the argument fails.

Ron,Pascal is the father of probability. The points is an ancient problem in game theory. Anyone who is interested in the history of mathematics and probability will study the solution. I bring it up, because it shows how to think critically. As a student of Philosophy, I do not consider any scripture as authoritative. Therefore, if you want to argue about God and time, you need to cite Boethius (c. 475-525), in his works The Consolation of Philosophy or Professor Wolterstorff’s essay God Everlasting. Epicurus (341-270 BCE) is credited with the first argument from evil. You fail to understand that Christianity is directly related to Hellenistic Athens (all extant MSS of the NT are written in Greek). If you read Augustine it is obvious he is a Neo-Platonist and Neo-Platonism was a major influence on Christian Theology. Drange received his PhD from Cornell in 1963 and has been teaching Philosophy since 1960. I would bet on Drange knowing a hell of a lot more about matters of God than you do.

"As a student of Philosophy, I do not consider any scripture as authoritative."

I don't expect you to accept scripture as authoritative. As a student of philosophy, I would expect you would understand my earlier explanation. If Drange is trying to disprove the God of the Bible, and he is, then he has to use definitions from the Bible or accepted Christian theology. If he fails to do that, he is using a straw man argument which is not valid. I am surprised you cannot grasp this simple point.

If Drange wants to disprove the Gods of Boethius or Wolterstorff or Epicurus, he is welcome to do that and he must use their definitions of God's attributes. You cannot expect Christians to be interested in the discussion because the discussion does not affect their beliefs.

You do not understand the difference between Philosophy and Theology? Drange, Rowe, Gale, Everitt, and Martin are philosophers writing philosophy books and essays. What makes you think that any of them is setting up a straw man argument just to attack the triune God of Christianity? You obviously cut and pasted Drange’s argument from http://www.philoonline.org/library/drange_1_2.htm. There is nothing in this paper that suggest he is directly arguing from the stand point of a Christian God. He is a philosopher and his arguments are well understood in the Philosophy of Religion community. The theistic God is well understood from the philosophers worldview, this is the God that Drange, et al are arguing. You should define with precise attributes your concept of what ever God you are talking about. Are you using God as a proper name or a title, is he/she a triune God, is your God eternal or everlasting? After you have provided such a characterization of what you are referring, show some evidence such that an entity is an actual metaphysical reality. My reply to your objection to my premise #2, which btw was support only by an opinion. 1. God essentially knows all and believes only true propositions (omniscience)2. God essentially does not change from one time to another in respect to any nonrelational property (immutability).3. There are true temporal indexical propositions (A-Prop) to the effect that certain events and or times are now past, present or future. 4. It is conceptually impossible for a timeless being to know an A-Prop.5. God (by definition is timeless and eternal) does not know every true proposition (from 3 and 4)Premises1 and 5 are a contradiction, God is and is not omniscient. (Gale 58, On the Nature and Existence of God).My question regarding “Can God create” is not the paradox of the stone. A suitable defense has been given to the paradox, in that God can only do what is logically possible. There is nothing logically impossible about God creating a being that knows more than him. So how do you answer the question?I have taken three terms of Philosophy of Religion, there is always at least one Christian who like you just can not get their head around the traditional idea of Western Theism and Atheism.

I have not read anything from Drange except the link provided by Matt. I have no idea what God Drange may or may not have been trying to refute. But Matt is obviously trying to refute the God of the Bible. His book is titled Atheism: The Case Against Christ. So it is ridiculous to try and argue that the God of the Bible is not the God in question. If the God of the Bible was not the God in question, then I would not even be here.

To answer your question, God can only do what is logically possible. Since God knows all, it is impossible for him to create a creature that knows more than he does.

I had really hoped I would get a higher level of discussion from this website.

Since I really do want a higher level of discourse, I will help you think through your options.

My point regarding the immutability vs omniscience argument is that Drange has misunderstood the nature of God and timelessness. Here's your choices:

1. If you still think the argument is valid, then find some passage in the Bible that shows God is restrained by time... or find statements by Christian theologians that say the same thing. This is the only way to advance this particular argument.

2. If you still think the argument is valid but do not have the time to locate the needed passages, then say so and put the argument aside until you have the data in hand. Until you have the data, you can move on to your next strongest argument and we can discuss that argument.

3. If you see my point and do not believe it is possible to find passages in the Bible or in Christian theology saying God is restrained by time, then you can concede the point and move on to your next strongest argument.

Ron, Quoting you “if you think any of the Incompatible Properties Arguments put forward by Drange are valid, then you are mistaken.” and “I have not read anything from Drange”, so you admit that you had an ad hoc bias and are epistemic bankrupt.Why don’t you directly refute Dr. McCormick, instead of just making up a bunch of non-sense.

Ron,I referenced Augustine, Boethius and Wolterstorff’s all Christian Theologians, which I have read and who address the concept of God and time. I understand their argument, but you sir do not! I have also read Aquinas, Anslem, Descartes and Hume. I have a basic understanding of Tertullian (160-230 CE) ( I believe it because it is impossible) and fideism, the belief that faith is independent of reason, in contrast to the more rationalistic tradition of natural theology.“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” This question of the relationship between reason—here represented by Athens—and faith—represented by Jerusalem. Please show how the Bible and/or scripture is authoritative. Finding something in Dr. McCormick book that you can actually argue against.

Bob,Each time you answer you fail to deal with the arguments I lay out. I have already admitted I am a Christian so, of course, I come to the discussion with a bias. So does Matt and so do you. My arguments are not bankrupt. You have just failed to consider them.

You have mentioned Augustine, Boethius and Wolterstorff, but you have not cited any passage by them that says God is restrained by time. And, even if such a passage was found, the requirement I set out was that the teaching had to be held by a majority of Christian theologians. There was much error in early Christian theology on some very basic issues. Several councils had to be called to hammer out basic issues such as the divinity of Christ and the Trinity. The possibility of God ever being constrained by time never made into one of these councils because there was never a time when enough people taught the position for it to be controversial.

The issue is not that the Bible is authoritative for your life. The issue is that the Bible is authoritative for what Christians believe. If you want to refute a Christian idea, you have to define it the way Christians define it. If not, you are refuting a straw man argument and your goal is not achieved. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?

Ron,The first comment on this thread, details a YouTube discussion I had with a Catholic priest and another user. In that post I asserted that we were epistemic peers. During a very long dialog the Bible was not discussed or was an issue. Regarding Augustine, et al, I am not going to your homework for you. A few comments ago, I challenged you to give some attributes of your Christian God and provide some supporting evidence of such a Deity. I am only arguing in favor of a philosophical position of atheism. How can I setup a straw man position when I don’t have any idea what your Christian belief systems entails. At this point I would not consider you a peer. If you want to continue this thread, you can start by answering a couple of basic questions: 1) What do you believe and 2) why do you believe it.

If God is timeless and omnipresent, then time to him is like another dimension of space (cf the block universe of special relativity). Thus propositions such as #1 "Christmas 2012 is now past" (uttered today by me) have the same status as #2 "Edinburgh is to the North of me". It's clear that #2 could be true, and known by me, but it could not be known by God, because its truth is relative to the person uttering it. What God can know is its non-relative equivalent #2a "Edinburgh is to the North of David Evans".

In the same way God can know the non-relative version of #1, which is#1a "Christmas 2012 is at an earlier time than the time when David Evans uttered #1"

I appreciate the time and thought that many of you are putting into this conversation. There is, in fact, a deep tradition of philosophers engaging in deductive atheology, or arguing that various properties alleged to be possessed by God are either internally incoherent or they are logically incompatible with some other property. At least since the Middle Ages, these debates have led theologians and philosophers to improve on their descriptions of what sort of being God might possibly be. The well known Stone Paradox, for instance, has led the vast majority of people who take this project seriously to abandon the claim that God, if he exists, will have the power to anything, including logically possible acts. The widespread conclusion among theologians, philosophers, believers, and non-believers, is that we must restrict omnipotence to mean the power to do anything that is logically possible (at the least.) But even beyond this revision, numerous problems have been uncovered with this new definition. Currently, the state of the discipline is in some chaos because we do not have a plausible account of omnipotence that is both suitably powerful to be attributed to God and that does not fall prey to serious counter examples and logical problems.

So if omnipotence by itself is currently a mess, you can imagine how difficult it will be for theists to argue that omnipotence combined with some other properties are consistent, plausible descriptions of God. And so goes it with several other properties. Drange's article, which is now a bit dated, is intended to be just a brief overview of the sorts of arguments we have in a vast literature. I'm not surprised that some of you find his definitions to be uncharitable. I use this paper to prompt my undergraduate students to write papers, and it serves as a good, provocative jumping off point. The bigger challenge for the theist is to come up with a broader, coherent description of this supernatural being that he thinks is real. This description must fit with the rest of the a priori and a posteriori facts as we know them, it must be internally consistent, it needs to be sufficiently superlative to warrant the "God" label," and, one would hope, it would have some semblance to the supernatural being that billions of traditional believers have advocated for centuries. My own take is that this project fails miserably on everyone of these fronts, and it is very rare that I find someone who knows this literature who disagrees. Not only do we not have sufficient evidence to think that God is real, we don't even have a description of such a being that makes sense. But that, as you can imagine, is a huge conversation. I have touched on it many times on this blog over the years. Here are a few other relevant posts. I also touch on it some in my recent book:

David,Your statement: God is timeless and omnipresent. This statement is contrary. They both can not be true but both can be false. Wolterstorff (God Everlasting) states God is temporal and not eternal in the strict theological tradition. He defends a position that God is everlasting. A different concept of an eternity is simply to be everlasting, existing in time but having neither a beginning nor end. God is fundamentally non-eternal (God Everlasting). Wolterstroff’s discussion demonstrates God has a time-strand and his life and existence is itself temporal. Wolterstroff’s thinking is in the traditional Christian theistic view that God’s relationship to mankind is temporal, spatial, and anthropomorphic. Drange’s argument is immutability vs omniscience not timeless vs. omnipresent. If Wolterstorff’s characterization is true then Drange’s argument is sound because God can not be immutable and omniscient.

I have a question, though: Given the Judeo/Christian/Islamic worldviews, and the vital importance of belief in the correct God they entail (see God’s commandments!), Isn’t anything but option (1) out of bounds on this issue? I.e., if it is a toss-up, and both “epistemically permissible” (EP) to believe neither in Jesus’s resurrection nor God, but also just EP to believe in Jesus and God, then it seems the “problem of evil” becomes relevant and tips the scale of rationality towards non-belief (because of the contradiction between the theists definition of ‘God’ as both omnibenevolent and as a condemner of atheists to eternal Hell for holding epistemically permissible beliefs, and for convincing others to adopt their pagan rationality).

I.e., there appears no rational middle ground if theism is viewed seriously, given the detailed nature and (moral) seriousness of the theists proposed worldview; the theists needs a knock-down, home run of an argument, or else theism (and the Judeo/Christian/Islamic tradition) just seems to be one large cosmic conspiracy theory (and, rationally, almost certainly a false one at that).

(Note: I don’t think it’s acceptable to refer to epistemic skepticism, and the inability to fully understand God’s will, to escape the problem of evil’s headlock—I’m talkin’ to you William Lane Craig!)

Brad,Professor Kirby, who is a secular humanist, thinks theist do have an epistemic right to their beliefs. If we take William James’ ‘Will to Believe”, Richard Taylor on Faith, Wittgenstein’s fideism, Plantinga on reformed epistemology seriously then Christians can not be considered insane. If two people are epistemic peers, say a student of philosophy and a seminarian student, the best that can be hoped for is a reasonable disagreement. The problem is the everyday lay Christians (fundamentalist or liberal) does not defend their faith, with the justification for their beliefs with an understanding of the above mentioned source of knowledge. For the most part Christians just base their defense on the Bible or by God did it and that is that. Those Christians are delusional , suffer from cognitive dissonance and could be considered insane.

To sum it it up, I argue essentially that the (Christian) Monotheist has an enormous burden of proof resting on his shoulders, and "epistemically permisible" does not seem to cut it; anything less than "rational obligation" triggers the "problem of evil", which then obligates one, rationally, to dismiss (Christian) theism.

If there is any reasonable "fogginess" over the existence of God, then God is either imaginary or Evil. (And so "once all the relevant arguments, evidence, and background issues are adequately considered...", then option (2) cannot be an option in this debate.)

Unless, of course, this POE is fatally flawed in some way (I know Prof. McCormick teaches a class dedicated to the POE, so hopefully he might weigh in on this).

As a footnote, I take "epistemically permisible" to equal "plausability" or perhaps "logical possibility" and "rational obligation" to equal something like that of the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun--i.e. overwhelming rational evidence.

We either have good reasons for thinking that Jesus came back from the dead or we don’t. If we don’t, as I allege, then Christianity is based on a grand mistake.

Dr. Richard Feynman says “I can live with doubt and uncertainty, it is more interesting to live not knowing than to live with answers that may be wrong”.

A fundamentalist, my brother for example, will not except either of the above precepts. First, he has confirmation bias, and will only consider evidence that supports the God hypothesis. He does have a “rational obligation” (Brad) for his belief, and the justification is citing, as any smart theist would, what I call the big three Fs. Second, based on the three Fs he will assert that his answers to the ultimate concerns are true.

Here is my characterization of the big 3 F’s: Feeling, Fact, and Faith.Feeling : Religious experiences, for example the Self-authenticating witness of the Holy SpiritFact : Natural Theology, the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments.Faith : Fideism, faith is in some sense independent of reason.

As atheist, we have sufficiently criticized each one of the three precepts. Unfortunately, any of the works of McCormick, Rowe, Gale, Everitt or Martin will be prima facie dismissed without consideration by the devout Christian. The theist will always have apologetic’s and theodicy’s.

My wife claims that I will never change my brothers mind. I agree, the least I can hope for is his retreat licking his wounds. One of the new Atheist (Harris, Hitchens ?) said you can not argue someone out of a position that they did not argue themselves into.

Bob,You write "Wolterstorff (God Everlasting) states God is temporal and not eternal in the strict theological tradition."

In making this statement you agree that Wolterstorff's position is not within the Christian tradition. Whether you are correctly representing Wolterstorff or not, I do not know. But I do know the Christian position on God's timelessness. The Christian position is logically consistent. You cannot take a random view by one theologian and claim it is the Christian position. It is a straw man argument.

You write "Currently, the state of the discipline is in some chaos because we do not have a plausible account of omnipotence that is both suitably powerful to be attributed to God and that does not fall prey to serious counter examples and logical problems."

I cannot comment on the state of the discipline, but I can give you a Christian definition of omnipotence that I believe is unassailable.

God is able to do anything that is logically possible and is not contrary to his nature.

For example, the Bible makes it clear that God cannot lie. Being untruthful is contrary to God's nature.

Being the creator of time, God is not constrained by time. Omnipotence is an attribute that only applies to God.

If you show this definition of omnipotence is not logical consistent with his other attributes, please do so.

There are lots of sources explaining the omnipotence problems. The definition that you're giving, Ron, has been widely rejected by philosophers for decades, perhaps centuries. Too many problems. I have discussed the issues in previous posts, and I have given a link to a bibliography with lots more sources. You'll have to do your homework. A good place to start would be the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on omnipotence. Also Patrick Grim, Michael Martin, Drange, Sobel, Gale, Oppy, etc.

Good comment, however, you stated that “The Christian position is logically consistent”, but did not assert what the position acutally is. In one of your previous post you said “The possibility of God ever being constrained by time never made into one of these councils”. This seems to indicate that the Christian position is inconsistent.

Augustine, Boethius and Wolterstorff all have different claims regarding God, time, divine foreknowledge and how they justify freewill. Their postions are inconsistent.

You have spent a great deal of time looking at one side of the argument and no time looking at the other. Anthony Flew was a philosopher who knew all the arguments against God and wrote the book "There is No God." A years before he died, he changed his mind about God and wrote the book "There is a God."

I'm certain there is nothing new in the arguments presented here that was unknown to Anthony Flew. If Anthony was not persuaded by them, I see no reason to believe I will be.

You have made errors. I have attempted to point one or two of them out to you. Instead of attempting to further the argument, you say you are not going to do my homework. That comment does not fit the situation. If I was asking you to help me defend my side, it would be appropriate. I'm asking you to defend your side. You cannot tell me to do my homework to learn what your side it. It doesn't work that way.

You have failed to show what is wrong with my definition of the omnipotence of God. That debating style does not inspire confidence.

After a brief email exchange with Nicholas Wolterstorff, I think I understand his viewpoint that God is everlasting but not out of time. I think the correct view point is more nuanced than that.

Time is a function of space and dimension. Just ask Einstein... or expert in general relativity.

When God created our spacetime in the Big Bang, God was outside of it and independent of it. God is not constrained by our spacetime.

2 Peter 3:8 says "But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

You do not have to accept this Bible verse as truth, but you do have to accept it as the historical position of the Christian Church.

The Christian position is that God is atemporal with regard to our spacetime. But that does not mean everything happens at once in heaven. The Bible does not speak of this issue clearly and so the Christian teaching on it has some flexibility, but I believe it makes sense for heaven to have an arrow of time without beginning or end. It is my guess most Christian theologians and philosophers would agree with this definition.

Wolterstorff, it appears to me, has made it clear that he is more committed to his religious convictions than believing those claims that are justified by reasoning. Reasoning is supposed to be subordinated to his Jesus beliefs, he maintains: http://www.provingthenegative.com/2011/02/defeasibility-test.html

The result, I think, is that we cannot take him seriously if we are trying to figure out what's reasonable to believe. He's valuable, I suppose, for finding ways to sustain Christian beliefs in the face of all possible counter evidence and reasons, if you share that goal. But that precludes the rest of us from having any real rational exchange with him; he's left the playing field of rationality.

Ron,You clearly have done some homework. But from a philosophy of religion position, not Christian theology there is a couple of problems with your posting:1) It is circular. “When God created our spacetime in the Big Bang” you are assuming what your trying to prove. 2) We have been discussing God’s attributes and have provide arguments that show that some predicates are inconsistent. 3) What is lacking in the thread is there is not evidence that is sufficient to demonstrate the certainty of a triune God.

One principle that is accepted throughout science and everyday life is that we should not believe in entities for which we have no evidence:Let G = God exist.Let P = God has confirmed his existence to man with conclusive evidence.(G ↔ P)Gods confirmation is invalid/unsound, therefore the contrapostive is(¬P ↔ ¬G)¬PConclusion ¬G

"1) It is circular. “When God created our spacetime in the Big Bang” you are assuming what your trying to prove."

Not true. The argument is over whether God's attributes are compatible or incompatible. The argument itself assumes God exists for the purpose of trying to disprove his existence. If you want to refute the Christian position, you have to treat it honestly or you are refuting a straw man. I am simply explaining to you what the Christian position is.

2) We have been discussing God’s attributes and have provide arguments that show that some predicates are inconsistent.

Not true. Arguments have been put forward but they fail as I have pointed out.

3) What is lacking in the thread is there is not evidence that is sufficient to demonstrate the certainty of a triune God.

True. Evidence for God's existence is lacking on this website, but that is not my fault. There is plenty of evidence for God's existence. That evidence is not found on these web pages.

"One principle that is accepted throughout science and everyday life is that we should not believe in entities for which we have no evidence..."

You then go into an deductive proof which fails for several reasons. First, the standard is "conclusive conclusive." In the next post by Matt titled "Some Varieties of Disproof," he makes a case for a lower standard of evidence which I agree with. Secondly, your argument assumes you possess all knowledge and know that "conclusive evidence" (or possibly even "greater weight of evidence") for God's existence is not available. This is demonstrably false as rational people like Anthony Flew, Francis Collins, Allan Sandage, CS Lewis, Lee Strobel and many others have already been persuaded by the available evidence.

You should know that the history of philosophy is strewn with the attempts to disprove the existence of God. They have all failed.

When I cited Wolterstorff essay God Everlasting my point was to contrast his theology with Augustine and Boethius.Matt’s reponse was that Wolterstroff could not be taken seriously because of an ad hoc bias and he had left the playing field of rationality.Dr. Matt’s book Atheism and the Case Against Christ page 68 quotes Wolterstorff , “ the Christian scholar ought to reject certain theories.”That does not say much about following the evidence where every it leads.

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Atheism

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Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.